The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake eBook

They made the return trip with hearts far lighter
than they had been as they made their way to the gypsy
camp. Bessie had seen that Lolla was afraid of
John, though now that he, had been over-reached she
was ready enough to laugh at him.

“What are you going to do! How are you
going to get her away, Lolla?” asked Bessie,
as they neared the point where she had first seen her
ally.”

“I don’t know yet,” said Lolla,
frankly. “If Peter is on the trail it will
be harder. I hope he will be inside, so that we
can slip by without his seeing us. If he is,
and we get by, then you are to wait until you hear
me sing. So.”

She sang a bar or two of a gypsy melody, and repeated
it until Bessie, too, could hum it, to prove that
she had it right, and would not fail to recognize
it.

“When you hear me sing that, remember that you
must run down and go to your friend. Here is
nay knife. Use it to cut the cords that tie her.
Then you and she must go back toward the rocks where
you went down. And when you hear me sing again
you are to go down, as quickly as you can, but quietly,
and, as soon as you are past the place where she was
hidden, you must start running. I will try to
catch up with you and go with you, but do not wait
for me.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Bessie
began.

But now Lolla was the general, brooking no defiance.
She stamped her foot.

“It does not matter whether you understand or
not,” she said sharply. “If you want
me to save your friend and get back to the others you
must do as you are told, and quickly. Now, come.”

They went on up the trail, and, at the bend just below
the spot where she had broken through to reach Dolly
before, Bessie waited while Lolla, who had recognized
the place from Bessie’s description of it, crept
forward to make sure that the way was clear.

“All right,” she whispered. “Come
on.”

Silently, but as swiftly as they could, they crept
past the place, and, when they were out of sight stopped.

“Now, you will know my song when you hear it?”

“Yes, indeed, Lolla. Why, what have you
got there?”

“What I need to make Peter come with me,”
laughed Lolla. “See, a fine meal, is it
not? I got it at the camp. Let him smell
that stew and he would follow me out of the woods.”

Bessie began to understand Lolla’s plan at last.
She was going to tempt
Peter to betray his orders from his friend by appealing
to his stomach.
And Bessie wondered again, as she had many times since
she had met
Lolla, at the cunning of the gypsy girl.

Her confidence in Lolla was complete by now, and she
did not at all mind waiting as she saw the little
brightly clad figure disappear amidst the green of
the trail.

It was some time, however, before she heard any signs
that indicated that Lolla had obtained any results.
And then it was not the song she heard, but Lolla’s
clear laugh, rising above the heavy tones of Peter.